Death and the Hunter
by Ellynne
Summary: Graham sits alone in a dark wood, waiting for a morning that may never come till a stranger comes to share his fire.


**Note:** This story is written for Wintersmith, because I promised to try and set right what Graham did in Breathe. I hope this manages to do that.

Also, Persephone in my stories is usually a petite, perky goddess who appears fifteen. But, that's not what Graham needed.

 **X**

Graham put some more wood on the fire. The night was already cold and promising to get colder. It was dark and moonless. His fire was the only light. If he tried to find his way out of the forest now, he'd only get himself more lost—assuming he didn't trip headlong over a cliff or fall into a stream and drown.

It would be a long time till morning.

He heard twigs crack and reached for a thinner log he could use as a club. There were some large predators in Maine. Bears weren't as rare as they used to be, and he'd seen a wolf with his own eyes. It didn't even have to be a predator. People had been killed by elk and moose. Most of them would stay away from a fire, but the ones that didn't were almost guaranteed to be trouble.

But, what stepped out of the darkness wasn't a wolf or angry moose. It was a tall woman in a long, red dress. Her black hair was tied to the side, spilling down over her breast.

 _Regina,_ Graham thought, feeling a tightness in his chest, though he'd never seen the mayor dressed like this.

"Good evening," the woman said in a voice that, thankfully, was nothing like Regina's. "May I share your fire?"

Graham nodded. The woman came closer. She was, he saw, much taller than Regina. She moved differently too. Regally. Was that the word he wanted? He'd heard Granny say Regina walked like she thought she was queen of creation and everyone had better get out of her way (Granny had paled when she realized he was close enough to hear her). Before tonight, he would have said that was what regal was.

But, this woman moved as if the world around her were a magnificent castle, as if the things touched by her shadow were the greater for it, not shrunk into nothing.

The woman sat on a log on the other side of the fire, as calm and posed as a cat. "Sheriff Graham," she said. "What brings you here?"

"How do you know my name?"

"We've met before, you and I."

She sat on a moss covered log and looked like a queen holding court. "I think I would remember meeting you."

"Do you?" she said, amused. "But, you haven't answered my question. What brings you here?"

He looked at the darkness around him, certain he should know the answer. But, memory slipped through his fingers, like a quick fish darting through the rapids. "I don't even know where here is."

"Lost your bearings, have you? As you can see, we're in the woods. Do you hear the running water?" She pointed into the night. "There are five streams that converge not far from here, Grief, Mourning, Forgetting, Fire, Hate. Do those names mean anything to you?"

Graham frowned. "They sound familiar, but I don't remember."

"Do you remember how you came to be here?"

"I . . . I was walking. I think. I. . . ." He'd been in the woods where he'd seen a wolf. He'd been feeling sick, confused. "A cemetery. I was in a cemetery. I was searching for. . . ." He fell silent, confused.

"Yes?" the woman said. "Searching for what?"

"My heart." He flushed. "I was sick. Maybe I dreamt it. I thought my heart was buried there."

"Did you? Well, don't worry. It's not there anymore."

Graham shook his head, not really listening. "I don't understand. I dreamt. . . . I thought. . . . My heart was torn out of me. Regina. She held it. Whatever she said, I had to do."

"Yes."

"But, she was still angry. I couldn't—I wouldn't—"

"The problem with people who take what they want is they get angry with what isn't freely given. Stolen hearts are empty. People crush them in their hands, looking for what they never held, and wonder why they're left with nothing but dust."

"I told her I was leaving," Graham said. "I said we were done."

"Well done. Though I'd have said you'd never begun."

"I dreamt. . . . Was it a dream? I dreamt I—I hurt people. She gave me orders. And I hurt them."

The woman reached down and picked up a stone. "See this? If I throw this at someone, I could hurt them. If I wanted, I could kill them. Tell me, Sheriff, if I did that, who would you arrest? Me? Or the stone?"

"I'm not a stone."

"Stone hearts don't break. They don't grieve as you're grieving."

"I'm not grieving."

"You are trapped, here, between the waters of Lamentation and Forgetting, between Hatred and Fire, not knowing where to turn. What are you doing if not grieving?"

She kept spouting nonsense, like a book you tried to read in a dream and couldn't understand. "What are you doing?"

"Me? My guard dog caught your sent and wanted you found, so I came hunting for fire in the dark. He's a good beast. He has a kind heart for wolves."

"Dogs don't like wolves."

"Oh, not when they come prowling where they shouldn't. But, they're brothers from long ago. Now and then, they still meet and surprise themselves with remembering."

 _Wolf and hound were brothers, born to a single dam. . . ._ "I remember that story," Graham said. "There was a wolf, a great she-wolf, who gave birth to two pups, a gray wolf and a man." No, that wasn't it. He'd said something wrong.

But, the woman nodded. "That's right. They were Children of the Moon who ran on four legs by their mistress' light but walked on two by day. The great matriarch, ruler of her pack, bore her child as the eclipsed moon turned to blood and hid her face in shadow. The she-wolf had felt only one life struggling to free itself from her womb but two babes lay in the cradle come the dawn, one human, one not. A boy with earth brown hair but with a sheen as gold as day, and a wolf with one eye black as night and the other red as the blood moon. Or so it seemed."

Graham struggled to remember the rest of the tale. "She'd had one child. One soul was split between them. The wolf who never walked as a man, the man who never ran as a wolf."

"And when one was enslaved and collared, the other still ran free."

"I saw a wolf," Graham said. "A wolf in the wood. He showed me the place my heart was buried."

"A good deed," the woman said. "Those so rarely go unpunished. What happened next?"

Graham watched the flames. He added more wood, as if its light would give him answers. "It's not after that matters," he said. "It's before."

"And what was before?" she said softly. Like a hunter, he thought, trying not to scare her prey away.

 _Isabel._ No, whatever had happened he wouldn't—he hadn't—he couldn't think that, not yet. "I was looking for . . . for. . . . I couldn't find it. Not then. There were other things. People. Other people." Another name floated up in his mind. It slid out of him before he could stop it. "Kurt Flynn. I remember—his car broke down, and—and something happened. To him. I knew something happened to him. But, when I tried to find out, there was nothing. No missing person report, no news articles, no records of any kind."

"None?" the woman said. "None at all?"

 _None._ That's what he wanted to say, because the truth made even less sense.

Or maybe it made a different sense, a kind he didn't want to think about. "Almost thirty years ago. There was a man with that name who vanished on a camping trip. I—I found his name."

"Did you?"

"I saw—I dreamt—I must have dreamt—I went to Granny's right after he'd been in Storybrooke. I dreamed I looked through her guest book. There was a page. With his name written on it."

"I see. And what happened to this page in Granny's guest book?"

"I tore it out. In the dream, I tore it out." He looked at the flames dancing in front of him. "I put it in the fire and scattered the ash."

"You said it was a dream."

"After I dreamed—after I remembered the dream—I went to Granny's. I said I needed to check something in her book."

"Naturally. And was there a page missing?"

"Yes." There'd been few enough guests at Granny's, but she couldn't be using the same book from thirty years ago. Could she?

"But, that's not all you remember, is it?" the woman pressed.

"Regina," he whispered. "She called me in. She said there was a man, a dead man." He watched the flames burn. The fire and the unseen water, those were the only sounds in this forest, as if he and this woman were the only living things here. It wasn't enough to keep him from remembering. "She told me to deal with him."

"Deal with him?"

"Bury him. In the woods. She watched while I dug the grave." He shuddered. "She was smiling."

It still wasn't enough for her. "Bury him. Is that all?"

"What do you mean?"

"Did she _say_ there was a dead man? Or did she ask you to _make_ a dead man?"

He stared at her, words turning to ice in his throat before he could say them.

She nodded. "So, you remember."

"It wasn't—it can't be real. Kurt Owen died almost thirty years ago. It couldn't have happened."

"If it couldn't, then it didn't. Of course, it follows that, if it did, it could be."

"It wasn't—"

"It's said that, when the earth is stained with blood, it cries out for justice for the dead who can no longer speak for themselves, because there is no other power that can wash it clean."

"Stories."

"True enough. Tell me, little stone, who do you cry out for?"

And this was the truth he'd been afraid to speak, the truth he hadn't wanted to remember. "Isabel," he told her. "Isabel. She was my friend. She trusted me."

"Oh? And what did you do with that trust?"

"She was attacked. Regina didn't want it investigated."

"And did you do what Regina wanted?"

"I always did what Regina wanted." He swallowed bile, feeling sick.

"Until you didn't. Until you told her the two of you were over. Even if you hadn't begun."

"I began looking into it," Graham said. "But the evidence had all vanished. Records, tests, fingerprints, everything."

"And did you have a list of suspects who could have done such a thing?"

"Storybrooke is a small town. The sheriff's office isn't that hard to get into. Locks aren't that hard to pick."

"Not for someone who knows how. Assume someone didn't. Who's left on your suspect list?"

"Regina. Regina might have done it."

"The mayor, the one you couldn't disobey. How awkward. Anyone else?"

"Me."

"Even more awkward. When did you begin to suspect you?"

"When I remembered doing it."

"Ah. I see. Yes, that would do it. Excuse me for pressing what is, no doubt a sore point, but when did that happen?"

He'd been uneasy from the start, hadn't he? It was wrong, what he'd done. Not just because it was _wrong_ —ignoring the law, his duty, even his friendship because that was what made Regina happy. It was wrong in other ways, like seeing an actor playing a scene that was supposed to be from your life but he was did it all wrong. Everything he could remember about that case, what he'd done, what he'd felt, even what he'd thought, it was all wrong.

Not like an actor, he thought. It was worse than that, like watching his own corpse strung up as a marionette and dancing to a madman's tune.

He would never have done it, he would never betray everything he believed in that way. If he had, he would have felt guilt. He would have memories of whatever lies and excuses he'd told himself.

Instead, he'd just done it. No excuses, no justifications. He'd just . . . done it.

Because he was the guilty man.

When did he remember that?

He thought about talking to Emma, all the madness, the fears, the things he'd told her. _Regina has my heart._ But, he'd walked away from Regina. He'd told her they were through. And Emma. He'd believed in her. Or she'd believed in him. Or something more.

He'd kissed her.

And he'd remembered.

And, then. . . .

"When I died," he told the woman. "That's when I remembered. When I died."

"Ah," she said. "I thought it might be."

"I _died._ "

"Yes."

"This place. What is this place?"

"I told you the names of the waters that flow here: Grief, Mourning, Forgetting, Fire, Hate. Or as they are also known: Acheron, Cocytus, Lethe, Phelegethon, and Styx."

"The rivers of the Underworld."

"Yes."

"If this is the Underworld, who are you?"

"Just one among many here."

"You have a guard dog."

"That's what I call him. He noticed you were in trouble and let me know."

"Trouble?"

"It happens sometimes. People who die who have trouble believing they're dead. Especially deaths like yours, the ones that are sudden and cruel. And disorienting. Death and memory came to you hand in hand. Don't tell me it wasn't confusing."

"I wasn't—"

"Oh, you were. You've been sitting here in the dark, not moving on, for days now."

"I didn't—I was waiting for dawn."

"We don't have that here. You've been waiting a long time."

Graham looked into the darkness, trying to see what was ahead. "Tautaurus. That's what's waiting for me, isn't it?"

"The Circles of Hell? Why should you go there?"

"Isn't that where traitors go? I murdered the man who came to our town for safety. I betrayed the friend who thought she could trust me. I betrayed her again when she asked me for justice. I—"

"You were a rock in another's hand. It's not your fault how you were thrown."

"I didn't stop Regina. I didn't fight her."

"You couldn't. Not then. You were trapped twice over. You were caught in Regina's curse. All you knew were the lies she gave you. Before that, she tore out your heart. You never had the power to fight back, not till Emma came and gave you the strength to break free."

"Emma. Henry was right. She's the savior."

The woman nodded. "You helped her. You gave her a job, a place where she can strike back against Regina. And she's doing it." She added gently, "You've done your part in this war."

"That's not the only war," Graham said. He remembered that night, he remembered Regina giving her commands and waiting in the alley as Isabel walked by. "Isabel was my friend, and I. . . ." _I raped her._ The words caught in his throat. He remembered the smell of blood, the sound and feel of breaking bones. _I worse than raped her._

"It was _not your fault_ ," the woman said. "If you could have died rather than done that, would you?"

He couldn't speak, but she nodded as if he'd answered. "If you could have stopped it, you would have. You did not consent to this, Hunter. It is not your fault." She waited for him to speak, then gave a sigh as he stayed silent. "I told you the names of the streams. The water of Forgetting is not far from here. If that is what you need to find peace, then drink there, wash away the memories of what happened."

"Forgetting won't change it."

"No, but it will change the pain you feel. It will give you rest."

"I don't _want_ rest."

She gave a businesslike nod, as if she'd been expecting this. "Very well, what would you have?"

"I want to go back. I want to tell Isabel what happened, to—to—"

"Beg her forgiveness?"

"I don't deserve that. To help her. To do something—anything—to make up for what I've done." He looked at her, this black haired woman with eyes darker than the night around them. He was beginning to suspect who she was. "I suppose you're going to tell me that's not allowed."

"Of course, it's allowed. Where do you think ghost stories come from? But, it's not easy. Some ghosts walk in dreams, and the living believe that's all they are, a dream. Others walk the earth but fight to be seen or understood. You may return but find yourself powerless to make a difference. Here, there is peace and rest. There, all bets are off. Think. Do you really want this?"

"Yes."

"All right, then. Lucky for you, you already have a ride out of here." She reached into the fire, ignoring the flames, and drew out a burning branch, holding it aloft. Its light stretched into the woods. "You heard him. Come."

Graham turned to see who she was speaking to and saw a wolf standing at the edge of the firelight.

Not just any wolf, _his_ wolf, his other half, born when the full moon turned to darkness and blood. It stood where it was, as if a wall Graham couldn't see kept it from coming closer.

"I rule here," the woman told the wolf. "This is my place, and I give you leave to enter. Come."

The wolf padded forward uncertainly, stopping a few feet away and sniffing at her distrustfully. Graham felt what the wolf felt. The curse had blocked this, he realized. Regina had stolen his heart and half his soul. Or she had till the very end. And he knew what troubled his wolf.

"You smell wrong," Graham said. "You smell dead."

"Well, I should hope so," the woman said. "A fine state we'd be in if I didn't. But, you see the chance you have here?"

"No."

She rolled her eyes. "He's the other half of you. Your body died. His didn't. And Regina could only control the body she'd taken the heart of. This one is free and always has been."

"How does that help?" Graham asked. "I know what he knows, and he knows what I know. But, we're still separate."

"When half your soul was in one body and half in another. You'll notice, I trust, how that equation has altered." She cleared her throat. "I have a little power with souls, as you may or may not have guessed. Putting you in there is not going to be a problem. If you want. But, be warned, the human part of you has not lived inside the wolf. It may be harder for you than you expect."

"Send me back."

"That's not all you need to know. This is important. Regina cannot be killed, not while the curse stands. The same does not apply to you. If the wolf dies, you die. Keep that in mind."

Graham nodded, thinking over what she had said.

"If I go back, I can help Isabel?"

"You will be _able_ to help her. More than that, I can't see."

"But, I can't kill Regina."

"Not while the curse stands."

"Emma can break the curse."

The woman smiled, like a teacher whose student had finally understood her lesson. "Indeed."

"Send me back."


End file.
